During the cell formation of a display panel of a liquid crystal display device, a liquid crystal substrate is segmented into several liquid crystal panels with different sizes, and then the liquid crystal panels are subjected to lighting detection so as to detect deficiencies. Among them, an electrical deficiency, as a most frequently occurring deficiency, mainly includes spots, broken circuits (of a data line, a gate line and a common line), short circuits (of any two of the data line, the gate line and the common line), X-axis bright/dark line, Y-axis bright/dark line, and so on.
There mainly exist two kinds of broken circuits. One includes a broken metal wire at a display region of the liquid crystal panel, and during the lighting detection, this kind of broken circuit is represented by bright or dark lines that do not extend throughout a screen. The other includes a broken metal wire (a data line terminal or a gate line terminal) at a terminal region, and during the lighting detection, this kind of broken circuit is represented by bright or dark lines that extend throughout the screen.
FIG. 1a is a schematic view showing the terminal region of the existing liquid crystal panel, and FIG. 1b is an exploded view of the terminal region. The liquid crystal panel includes an array substrate 1 and a color filter substrate 2 arranged opposite to each other. Usually, the array substrate 1 is of a size greater than the color filter substrate 2, so the array substrate 1 may extend beyond the color filter substrate 2 as shown in FIGS. 1a and 1b. The terminal region 3 is just arranged at a portion of the array substrate 1 beyond the color filter substrate 2, and exposed to the outside. The terminal region 3 is a region where the terminals of the metal lines, e.g., the data lines or gate lines, are located, and usually it is arranged at left and upper sides of the liquid crystal panel. To be specific, the gate line terminals are arranged at the left side, while the data line terminals are arranged at the upper side.
Currently, the broken metal wire at the display region of the liquid crystal panel may be repaired in two methods. One includes outputting a dedicated repairing line on the liquid crystal panel so as to repair the broken metal line, and the other includes outputting a specific pixel so as to repair the broken metal line using lines in the pixel. However, when the broken meal wire occurs at the terminal region 3, it is impossible to repair the metal wire by means of the dedicated repairing line. In addition, there is no pixel or any other line surrounding the broken metal wire 4 at the terminal region (as shown in FIG. 4), it is impossible to repair the broken metal wire by means of the other line either. During the actual manufacture, the terminal region is exposed to the outside, so the metal wire at the terminal region is easily broken, especially during the cutting. The metal wire may usually be scratched by glass fragments, and the bright/dark lines and thereby a detection result “not good (NG)” may occur. Hence, there is an urgent need to provide a method for repairing the broken metal line at the terminal region, so as to improve the yield.